Taylor Swift Doesn’t Need Your Permission

Shake It Off came on in a grocery store once and I caught myself doing something embarrassing with my cart in the cereal aisle. I’ll leave the specifics to your imagination. The point is that Taylor Swift has this effect, and people who pretend otherwise are lying for social reasons.

The social reasons are real enough. Swift’s fanbase has always included exactly the kind of person you instinctively want to distinguish yourself from—the aggressively mainstream, the ones who cry at the radio. Hating Taylor Swift was a useful signal for a while: it meant you had taste, or at least an opinion about having taste, which passes for the same thing in most circles.

But she kept making songs. I Knew You Were Trouble, Safe & Sound, Shake It Off—well-constructed pop executed with genuine craft and total commitment. You can hold the pose of detachment for a while, but at some point you’re working too hard and the song is just sitting there being good. Anyone who doesn’t abandon whatever they’re holding and start dancing when Shake It Off hits is doing something wrong with their life.

Blank Space isn’t her best. The video is a knowing parody of the tabloid narrative—Swift as serial-heartbreaker, Swift as psycho girlfriend—and the joke is clever once, and then it ends and you’ve had exactly the right amount of it. It’s the kind of track you appreciate more than you enjoy. But it knows precisely what it’s doing, which is more than most of what’s competing for the same chart position.

You’re allowed to like her. You’ve always been allowed. Nobody who actually matters cares.